[MINC-users] Display + Cygwin

[Dylan David Wagner]

Andrew Janke wrote:

> I'm interested if only in the approach you are using.
> 

	Hi,

            The approach is a bit mixed. There was a release of 
minctools all set up for cygwin posted on the Repric website late 
january. I believe Dr. Armony is the one who put it together. However I 
was unable to get it to work (different perl versions, different 
versions of X, etc.) I'm no unix/cygwin expert but based on the 
instructions I think Repric forgot to also post the install packages 
that were used to make the particular build of cygwin that the minc 
tools they posted was designed for. So I started from scratch using the 
repric one has a reference for where to shove the esoteric libs and how 
to setup the path.

	What I've done then is simply to download the minimum of cygwin 
packages necessary to run minc, then from there build cygwin and 
transfer the compiled minc tools into this new build along with some of 
the Bic perl scripts which I modified a bit to work with cygwin, as well 
as some path settings (had a terrible time getting minc to find all the 
proper perl stuff). So far I've uninstalled it and tried putting it back 
together from the instructions I wrote and it worked perfect. So 
presumably it'll work well on other computers as well.

         As neither myself, nor the people in my lab for which I'm 
putting this together, are all that unix savvy I tried to make it as 
easy as possible to install. Some people have emailed me asking for it, 
so if you or anyone else want to check it out I put up a quick and dirty 
webpage at

http://www.bic.mni.mcgill.ca/~dwagne/





> Are you simply compiling everything on one machine and then making an
> installer based upon the entire contents of C:\cygwin using something
> like Innosetup?
> 
> I ask if only because I am currently investigating the best way to
> provide packages for cygwin.
> 
> There are perhaps three "good" approaches from what I can see.
> 
>    a) use dpkg   (within cygwin)
> 
>    b) Create proper cygwin installer packages that can eb used by setup.exe
>          if you add the proper line to the packages sources dialog
> 
>    c) Create .exe stand alone pointy-clicky self/extracting/installing archives.
> 
> 


	I suppose it depends on what people would be using it for. I'm putting 
this together specifically for fmri analysis for psychologists, with the 
idea that it has to be incredibly easy to install, and probably doesn't 
need to have it's core minc tools updated all that often as the 
preprocessing for fmri pipeline, I believe, doesn't change that much 
over time.

	The other reason I wanted this, both for myself and my lab, is that we 
can then have matlab/fmristat call cygwin to do the preprocessing from 
within a script or a gui (which I'm working on now) and automate the 
whole process. Something that can certainly be done in linux or on one 
of the unix machines in the bic, but, well... I like my office, and I 
tried dual booting linux and windows and failed miserably. To say 
nothing of the coolness factor of popping the lot onto a windows laptop 
and doing it at high altitude, for the jetset neuroimagers amongst us.


	But certainly A or B would be quite welcome, as I can then just make a 
much smaller archive of only the perl wrappers and some of the afni 
binaries required for fmri preprocessing.









-- 
=====
Dylan David Wagner
Neuropsychology and Cognitive Neuroscience Unit
Montreal Neurological Institute
Tel: (514) 398-4400 (x089722)
Email: dylan.wagner@mail.mcgill.ca
Lab website: http://www.mni.mcgill.ca/cog/jonesgotman/